Christmas
No traps are set that day; there are no guns;
Dogs do not bark.
Even our oldest, even our youngest ones,
Hop out by dark.
Yet none can tell why such respite should
Each year come round,
As if, that day, some mighty Rabbithood
Peered above ground.
(Philip Larkin, Christmas 1954)
Philip Larkin loved rabbits, and was wretched that they were being killed by myxamotosis.
I was in Hull once on a Larkin pilgrimage. Looking out of my B&B I saw a rabbit by the rubbish-bins.
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